So, in my final weeks in the Navy, it’s time to really start getting ESP up and going. This means taking that camera off the shelf and actually using it for creative things again… I know, shocking idea… Anyways, popped the pocket wizards on the camera and the SB-800, and took the pups out back into the yard. They had a ball chasing me around the yard, and I got to make some cool photos of them. I am always amazed at what one light can do. In a pinch when you are shooting something unexpected, there is a lot of diversity in balancing a single flash to available light. Easy to make dramatic light.
Not that I was in any kind of a pinch here, but, when chasing two 4 month old puppies around the yard, trying to light “creatively” becomes a real pain in the butt fast.
Started out at 1/250 of a sec, wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting a lot of blur, and I wanted to be at the high-end of my sync speed. Went with f/14 metering off the sky, then kicking it down a few clicks to make sure I had good ground detail. I went with 1/8 power to start. Normally do a 1/4, but I thought since I will be working pretty close to them, flash to subject, 1/8 might be a better option…I was wrong… not enough light…
Ended up kicking the power up to 1/4 to get the light I wanted, then kicked the f/ up a little to kill the sky down a little more. I like dramatic gray clouds in my backgrounds. . .
Found the settings I liked, and started working with it. Got a few cool images I thought…
I deemed this one my favorite of the afternoon. Shot all of these in like 20 minutes. A good shoot doesn’t require getting 1500 images in a single sitting. A good shoot is getting things that make you grin that stupid little grin when you glance down at the LCD and think, “Ha, look at that…I just did that…”
At least that’s what I do… I constantly surprise myself, but I always expect everything to go wrong and am ready for not getting a single good image, there are days like that…. It’s just simpler to be ready for it, otherwise you get really pissed… come to think of it, even when it does happen, I still do get really pissed… I digress…
You have to also think about what you are shooting for. Constantly be considering “Why the hell am I bothering to do this right now, what’s the point?”
I went out in the yard to brush up on my “lighting-on-the-go” and to shoot some Facebook photos of my dogs. I hadn’t done anything cool with them yet. And the first thing everyone says when they see a photo of a puppy… “Wow, they are getting big fast” I wanted a photo showing their growth… This one was a great demonstration of their growth. This photo is also a stretch into processing your photos properly to convey the same thought. i.e. I cropped it super skinny to emphasize his height. not everything has to be a set 5×7 or 4×6 or 8×10, ya know? Get creative, do whatever to show the world what you see…
Obviously, this has a tad bit of post to it. I say a tad pretty honestly. Just got all the new Nik software plug-ins. Got them half off thanks to the guys at Nik looking out for military photographers; which I think is pretty awesome of them… thanks you guys! Anywho, there is an AWESOME effect that applies realistic photo grain to your images. The ‘Silver Efex Pro 2’ Absolutely worth every penny. It puts the best looking film effect I have ever seen. That on a black and white, then laid over preserving luminosity gives it that contrasty look that this image has, which is amplified by the natural contrast from the harsh light coming bare from the flash.
As puppies do, they wore themselves (and me) out quickly. The whole shoot only lasted maybe ten to 15 minutes. It was fun though. My learning curve from this? I would say that I will be trying to focus more on using the falloff of the flash, instead of pointing straight at them. I didn’t like the hotspots in these photos…. It really bugged me, but I guess it doesn’t look too bad overall. It was hard to really see the LCD, which I have come to rely a little too much on, need to get back in the habit of only really using that with the histogram, it gives you a better overall summary on the fly of your exposure I think. Just the LCD can be misleading. It’s awesome to be shooting for me again, no more long days and crappy Navy topics. It was fun for the first two years on a carrier, but then it all becomes repetitive. There may be a fresh angle if you look long enough; but I am ready for a whole new set of topics, you know?? Anyways, last photo, here is the flash, and how the pocket wizard was set up:
Here are the links to the products, these hotshoe connectors are the greatest thing ever. No longer to I have to fret over the damned PC connector slipping out of it’s spot on the 800, nay I say. Never have an issue… and that caddy, indispensably amazingly awesomely important to me. That bungee just wraps around the flash head, and now it’s all a compact handheld unit, no fiddling with anything, just hold the thing as a whole and shoot on the fly. Or if you have an assistant, whatever. . . Here are the links if you are interested, hope you enjoyed the info and the photos in the post, any questions, just shoot me an email!
I’m not sure if this is who I bought these through (the hot shoe adapter) , I remember having to search to find them, as I knew what i wanted but didn’t know for sure that they existed. As a legal disclaimer, I am not advertising any one company, nor do I guarantee anything from anyone. This is all just personal advice and reference information, and these links are starting points to finding the things that you need to replicate my own personal set-ups. Just in case someone wants to get mad at me because they get the short end of someone’s stick…. Personally I stick with B&H and mpex.com most of the time. Don’t ask my opinion on adorama.com, I had a bad experience, we’ll leave it at that…
Well, that’s my backyard shoot with my labradoodles, Fletch and Dexter. I am sure they will be posted regularly. Also as a side note, these were all shot with the D700 and a 17-35 f/2.8. I LOVE that lens. ridiculous. More later///
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